Margarito looks in sensational shape; Cotto appears soft in comparison

By Boxing News - 12/02/2011 - Comments

Image: Margarito looks in sensational shape; Cotto appears soft in comparisonBy Dan Ambrose: Antonio Margarito weighed in at a lean 152.5 pounds at Friday’s weigh-in. Margarito, who fights at his best when he’s really lean, looked like a track star ready to chase down a prize. WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto looked much softer in comparison at 152.25 lbs.

While Cotto didn’t look fat, he wasn’t as lean as Margarito and looked a little bulky, I’ve seen Cotto in past weigh-ins and he usually is stripped down pretty lean, but in today’s weigh-in he looks bulky and not in the kind of shape needed for him to be able to run for 12 rounds like he’s going to need to in order to win.

He’s too small and fragile to stand up to Margarito in one on one fight, so I see his current conditioning as a mistake on his and his new trainer’s part. Cotto won’t be able to run long looking the way he is now. At best, I can see Cotto laboring around the ring for six rounds, but after that he’s going to run out of gas and Margarito is going to pounce on him like a ravenous hyena going for the kill. This isn’t going to be pretty.

Cotto isn’t a fighter that can handle pressure, and he can’t move very much without tiring. He’s good against guys that are kind of out of their element like 38-year-old Ricardo Mayorga, Yuri Foreman, Michael Jennings, Joshua Clottey, Alfonso Gomez and Zab Judah. But when Cotto has stepped it up against quality fighters, he’s failed miserably. He looks good against the beatable fighters, but failed at the big stage with Margarito and Manny Pacquiao. I expect him to fail again on Saturday night.

In the undercard weights:

Mike Jones 146 – Sebastian Lujan 146
Brandon Rios 136.4 – John Murray 134.75
Delvin Rodriguez 153 – Pawel Wolak 153.5
Glen Tapia 153.25 – Mike Ruiz 153.5
Mike Lee 177 – Allen Medina 174.25



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